John Reed on Big Banks’ Power and Influence

And that’s a fundamentally flawed system. If you say to a businessman, “What is your objective?” and he says, “My objective is to make money,” there are no boundaries on that. I mean, it’s only the law as to what you do in the middle. It would be better if you said, “I’m in business to serve my customers,” or “to create a product like an iPad or what have you.” But something that has intrinsic value. And all of a sudden, we changed to, “Hey, I’m not totally sure what we’re doing here. Maybe it’s not right. But you know what, I’m getting paid my commission.” And that mindset took over. And a lot of that money did flow into the political coffers.